CATANIA, Sicily — Migrants frantically shimmied up ropes dangling from a towering rescue ship and others jumped into the water grasping at lifesavers. Five bodies were recovered, and more were feared drowned in the latest Mediterranean migrant tragedy.
Dramatic footage shot by a seaman aboard the Maltese freighter showed the weekend rescue of more than 100 West Africans aboard the flimsy boat off the coast of Libya. Survivors were brought Tuesday to the Sicilian port of Catania.
The video, obtained by The Associated Press, highlights the danger of marine rescue and the desperation of the tens of thousands of people trying to reach Europe.
The footage was shot by a crew member of the cargo ship Zeran, which rescued migrants from two boats during the weekend and docked at Catania’s port Tuesday with mostly West African survivors aboard.
In the footage, migrants jumped or fell from their deflating dinghy to catch lifesavers tossed into the water by Zeran crew members. Others trampled one another to grab a rope lowered from the ship. Still others emptied jerry cans of gasoline to use as floats. Women and children were among the last off.
“Easy! Easy!” implored a crew member from Zeran’s deck.
The five bodies were recovered from inside the dinghy, floating amid the garbage and water that had seeped in.
“There was the big ship there, and they threw down ropes,” Astoy Fall Dia, a 24-year-old migrant from Senegal, said after disembarking from the Zeran. “Someone grabbed onto the rope. All the other people started pushing to try to save themselves, but the people started falling in the water.”
The weekend saw an increase in rescues as smugglers in Libya took advantage of calm seas and warm weather to send thousands of would-be refugees out into the Mediterranean in overloaded rubber boats and fishing vessels. The coast guard reported that nearly 7,000 people were rescued in the three days ending Sunday and an additional 300 off the Italian Coast on Tuesday.
Last month, an estimated 800 migrants are believed to have drowned when their boat capsized off Libya with hundreds of passengers locked in the hold by smugglers. A few days earlier, 400 more were feared drowned in another capsizing.
Alpha Sisse, a 17-year-old from Ivory Coast, said he had worked in Libya before deciding to make the journey, spurred in part because of the increasing danger of living in Libya.
Asked where he hoped to go from here, Sisse said: “Anywhere there is work. But my favorite country is Germany.”
